I talked yesterday about a soft paternalism that Amazon is using to encourage people to use their Kindle device for more things that just reading books. As I mentioned before, the Kindle is so extraordinarily good at displaying text, and making it pleasant to read, I’m all good with this being a single tasker \u2013 rather like a really good kitchen knife. I don’t need a corkscrew on my chef’s knife, after all.\n<\/p>\n
If I could only read that book on a Kindle and nothing else forever, I’d be pretty ticked off and would be unlikely to buy the book. Even so, when I am looking for titles, I’ll go to other publishers (like Baen<\/a>) first to see if that title has been released in a non-DRM protected format first. That’s the copy I’ll buy. My husband has a Kindle, too, and we don’t like to make the reading experience totally account-specific. If I buy a book for the household, after all, everyone can read it! Yes, I know that some authors and publishers allow for lending a book for a couple of weeks. While I’m all good with not being able to access the content while the book is “leant”\u2014I couldn’t if it were a dead tree title, after all\u2014many of the restrictions, and the paucity of publishers that allow this make this a really unsatisfactory solution. I think that there should be some option for a family account. Do like many software company and go for maybe five or so users to be on the license.\n<\/p>\n The funny part is that Amazon got it right when it came to music! You pay a buck for a song, just like iTunes, but the song is non-DRM protected, so you can play it on any device that suits your fancy. And<\/em> it only costs a buck. iTunes charges extra for non-DRM music, IIRC.\n<\/p>\n In my case, it makes for more sales. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I talked yesterday about a soft paternalism that Amazon is using to encourage people to use their Kindle device for more things that just reading books. As I mentioned before, the Kindle is so extraordinarily good at displaying text, and making it pleasant to read, I’m all good with this being a single tasker \u2013 … <\/p>\n